MEDAL ALERT
Chizuru Arai has won Japan’s sixth gold medal in judo at the Tokyo Olympics, beating Austria’s Michaela Polleres in the final of the women’s 70-kilogram middleweight division.
Arai reached her first Olympic final with three ippon victories, surviving a semifinal bout that lasted nearly 17 minutes against Russian athlete Madina Taimazova. The two-time world champion then claimed gold over Polleres with an early waza ari at the Budokan.
Arai is just the second Japanese woman to win gold out of five weight categories in Tokyo. The men swept the first four gold medals in Tokyo, but they won’t win a fifth after Shoichiro Mukai fell short before the medal rounds.